


sitting in a lavender grove

by lunarblazes



Series: we are the symphony [2]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: anyway, dream has a lot of feelings, fuck stars all my homies hate stars, i just want them to be friends again okay, i swear to christ i hate bbh’s real name in the tag, more sympathetic dream, none of them are good, sapnap and george are mentioned - Freeform, so uh, this was begun before the 16th, yeah that’s. that’s why this still exists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:40:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunarblazes/pseuds/lunarblazes
Summary: Dream really doesn’t want to burn his bridges, but they’re already turning to ash as he watches.-sympathetic dream smp au hours bro i just want the dream team to be Frens
Relationships: Clay | Dream & Darryl Noveschosch
Series: we are the symphony [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2040993
Comments: 3
Kudos: 39





	sitting in a lavender grove

**Author's Note:**

> ENTIRELY forgot to say this is technically part 2 of a series of sympathetic dream i’m writing! you could read it on its own, but i made a little series for the two fics i have so far. little one-shot series. probably gonna have one more because i want more sapnap content in this tag, dammit!

Dream’s head slid down the bark of the oak tree behind him. Solid, tall, and rough, the trunk of the thing was almost enough to keep him from panicking any more than he already was. Not quite enough, but close.

God, what was he doing? His friends missed him, they’d even said so, as George had told him a month ago before he’d involved himself yet again in the affairs of the revolutionaries. Why was he so terrified about this?

He’d faced down dragons, he’d stared beasts and monsters in the eyes. He’d even died a couple times. He’d dueled and he’d killed and he’d fought, and yet somehow this was still the most intense feeling of nervousness he’d ever had. It was frustratingly concentrated, pooling in his stomach and melting into his limbs, dragging everything down, down, down towards the earth, setting his mind aflame with possibilities. None of them were good. 

What was he  _ doing? _ He didn’t even know where his friends were at this point. He’d last seen Sapnap— god, not there, no— last seen him at the battle as he’d plunged his sword into his chest, watched as the ever-burning fire left his eyes and he vanished. Trying to swallow the white-hot guilt that built up at the sight had proven difficult as the opposing forces continued attacking. Dream buried his head in his hands, palms pressed to his eyes until white and red spots danced in his dark vision. The air around him was damp and sticky so close to the forest, almost clinging to his skin as he tried not to mourn an impermanent yet impermissible mistake.

How could he have done this? What had happened? Why? Why, why, why, why, why?

George’s cold red goggles forced their way to the front of his mind, reminding him of more that he’d done wrong. He’d left George, just gotten up and left after he’d said he cared. Not even a goodbye. No wonder George pretended not to see him at the top of the parapet above Manburg’s town hall. The guy probably resented him, and Dream really couldn’t blame him.

Soft footsteps crunched on the leaves behind him, and in a flash, Dream’s hands were gone from his tired eyes and fixed around his netherite blade, glowing with enchanted light and a wickedly sharp edge. No words needed when a sword such as this was on hand, and whoever was in the shadows would be revealed within seconds. If it was Techno, he’d stay under the trees even with the threat of a blade. If anyone else stepped out, Dream would see who they were. 

To his surprise, fluffy hair and glowing white eyes belonging to a figure who was engineered to blend into the shadows were shown under his gaze. His eyes widened. “Bad? What are you doing out here?”

Bad looked a little nervous, but still waved cheerily. “Hey! I was just… going for a walk.”

“...right.” Dream didn’t believe him, but didn’t press. As long as it wasn’t dangerous, it’d be fine. 

“Can you, um, put the sword away now, Dream?” Bad asked, his anxious glance flicking to the blade leveled about a foot from his nose. Dream blinked, realizing the situation, and sheathed it carefully. A slice from that sword could damage even him immensely, given he was only wearing a few scattered pieces of armor right now instead of his usual netherite set. 

He muttered a quick apology, stepping aside to let Bad pass through the woods and sitting down back in his spot near the tree. Bad couldn’t see his face very well as he picked up his mask from the ground and refastened it to his head, which was good— he didn’t need to show any weakness right now.

Bad turned to pass, only to hesitate for a moment. Dream almost didn’t notice the gentle man sitting next to him quietly, so wrapped up in his own thoughts. His hand was on his sword hilt in an instant, clutching it like a lifeline. Bad frowned.

“Why are you carrying that on you? Your armor’s at home, but you still carry the sword?”

“Netherite armor’s too heavy to wear around. If I can’t have that, I need this. For attacking.”

“Well, I mean, it’s a sword, I figured that was what it was for.” Bad smiled softly. “Are you sure you need it way out here?”

“With everything going on, yes. Absolutely.” What he didn’t say was that he’d hoped he’d never need one of these again, that he carried the instrument that had killed his best friend by his own hand, that he ran to the woods to seek the solace of the sunlight rather than the squalor of humanity. 

Bad’s smile caught on something, shifting his face into a mask of gentle worrying. Dream’s hand still hadn’t left his sword hilt, and he jumped as Bad laid a hand on his shoulder, his grip on the sword tightening. “Oh… oh no, Dream. When was the last time you slept?”

“...you don’t need to know that.” If Bad knew he’d last slept just long enough to keep the phantoms away, he could exploit that weakness and tell someone else and then they’d attack him and he’d lose again, lose to trusting someone again. 

Bad leaned back again, his hand leaving Dream’s shoulder and retreating to his lap. “You’re scared,” he said simply. Not as an insult, just as a fact. Words hanging in the air that neither of them knew how to counteract.

Somehow he’d managed to waste an entire day trying to figure out how to talk to his friends. The sun was setting again, the sky fading into a gray scape of clouds and vapor. Someone’s phantoms were screeching in the distance, swooping over the general pathway in the inhabited SMP lands. Once upon a time he’d go and help kill them, but not now. Now he was crouched in a forest, head cradled in the crook of his knees, his mask feeling more and more like a necessary shield every second Bad’s concerned gaze swept over him. 

“Dream, do you know where there’s a beehive?”

“There’s one in about 76 blocks, in an oak tree,” Dream said. He didn’t look up.

“Okay,” Bad responded, something hidden in the tone of his voice. “Thank you.”

He got up and began to walk away, and Dream was surprised to find that he felt a twitch of sadness for the solitude. He’s the leader, the ruler of the SMP. He can’t feel lonely. That would require having trust in someone, and trust was so easily broken these days. Better to stay alone.

Something told him he was wrong. He ignored it. The little feeling grew stronger. And stronger. Still, he ignored it. Images of his friends and memories of what they’d done together lazily glided to the surface of his mind’s eye. He stubbornly glared up at the stars, as if they had anything to do with his situation.

He couldn’t stop himself from reading all the constellations up there. Counting helped his brain stop, and in that moment any escape from the oppressive trip down memory lane that was his own mind was welcome. This inner conflict was so all-consuming that Dream didn’t even hear the footsteps approach, light and measured, didn’t see the dark figure slide over next to him.

He only snaps back to himself when there’s a little blue orchid laid in his lap. This has to be some kind of cruel joke, right? It has to be. He didn’t dare look at the man beside him, eyes still glued to the stars.

Bad sighed, a measured sound that Dream pointedly ignored. “Well, this has all gone very badly.”

Dream scoffed. “What was your first clue?”

“You never look at the stars. You always said they’re too full of untruths and possibilities,” Bad said after a beat. “Something tells me that feeling hasn’t changed, and yet here you are. What’s going on, Dream?”

Dream’s silence was cutting. His eyes didn’t move and his mask stayed fixed on the sky above. Bad was one of the only people who knew what lay beneath his mask, but he could be betrayed at any second, at any moment. Any instant he could be killed and his soul trapped in a rose, trampled out by the server he’d made and the ones who he’d made hate him. 

“Well, you don’t need to talk, but I know fear when I see it. You’re paranoid beyond belief and… I’m worried about you, Dream. You’re not letting anyone even close to you.”

“They’ll all leave,” Dream muttered, his voice more gravelly than he’d like. “Stab me and run. They’d have a right.”

Bad leaned back. “Is that why you’re looking to the stars,” he asked, glancing up at the sky, “or…?”

Dream really didn’t know why he was looking at this stuff. Sure, his brain had needed a distraction, but he could have just tried to count the number of biomes to the south of spawn, could have tried to figure out how many netherite ingots he’d need to make a portable set of armor for his travels. Bad was right— he’d always hated the stars and that still hadn’t changed. He hated the idea that all the terrible, awful acts he’d done to this server would be immortalized in a tapestry of light, saved for a whole world to stare at. Hated the idea that an insult or offense—  _ his sword on Sapnap’s neck, the fire hissing to a stop, the frantic dash to check spawn for a rose—  _ could be dictated by bits of gas and rocks. 

So he didn’t answer.

There was quiet for a while, Bad just breathing and staring up with him. He couldn’t say that it didn’t help a little, as much as he desperately wanted to deny all company. They could  _ all  _ betray him, they all had a reason to, but that didn’t mean he wanted to hate Bad. Bad had taught him how to make a server, how to create a little land for friends and family and how to make it grow. How could Dream even look him in the eye when faced with how badly he’d fucked up that gift?

“...I… I miss them, Bad,” Dream forced the words out, as if they had been building pressure in his chest for the entirety of this conversation. “I miss them. And I know I shouldn’t because I’m the one who sent this whole place to hell and I’m the one who decided to run off into the woods and I’m the one who can’t trust anymore but I want to be able to trust them again. They’d never let me close to them, I’m sure, but I miss them so much and I don’t know what I’ll do if I wake up and see a rose in place of one of them after I fought against them for so long—“ He cut himself off, drawing his limbs into a tight ball. Tears were building behind his mask. It hurt so much to finally say it, to finally admit that he’d chased his two best friends away with his mania and violence, and he still didn’t even know why he was doing this, really. Bad could still simply pull out a sword and take him out. Bad even knew how many respawns he had. He knew Dream was toeing the line of withering. Dream wasn’t even wearing armor.

Would he prefer the dark quiet of the void to the burning pain of living with what he’d done?

Bad knew Sapnap was born with few lives, even fewer than Dream. Bad had stood and watched as Dream cut him down. He’d yelled for them to stop, but Dream didn’t. Sapnap stopped and Dream didn’t. Bad had no reason to even trust the man sitting next to him. 

It didn’t matter that Dream tore through the wooden path to look for a rose. It didn’t  _ matter _ . Because either way his actions had caused something permanent and staining.

“George— he came to talk to me a while ago, before things got really bad— he said that they missed me and that I needed to stop running. I can’t— I can’t go back to them after that,” Dream said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I left them and then fought them. They trusted me and I just… I broke it.”

Bad was quiet for a moment before picking up the orchid from Dream’s lap and standing, pacing in the way he only did when he was thinking over something big. Dream could definitely guess what it was about. 

“Dream, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Dream started, head snapping up from his lap to gaze at Bad. “What?”

“It’s going to hurt to talk to them again. It is. And I know that, and you know that, and they probably know too. Maybe things won’t be the same, maybe there is damage done there. But if you keep hiding from this, they’ll never know you regret anything.” Bad stopped moving and turned on his heel, staring Dream in the eye, even through his mask. “They’ll think you a monster unless you tell them otherwise. You’re not a monster. So tell them.”

He dropped the orchid again, gaze softening. Bad leaned down, a small smile on his face. He laid a hand on Dream’s shoulder, pulling the stunned hunter into a hug. For once, Dream didn’t flinch away.

“I believe in you, Dream. Mistakes can be fixed if you give them your attention.”

He drew back, standing up again and turning on his heel. “So let them know you have your attention.”

The blue orchid lay on the grass as Bad stepped carefully away again, humming a distant song as he moved. Dream stared at the flower.

He leaned forward, reaching for it hesitantly, as if it might scorch him. His hand grasped the petals, and they were so  _ soft,  _ god, he hadn’t held one of these in so long, it’s been so long…

Dream missed these flowers. He missed the shades of blue that George would always bring home with him, he missed the warmth and energy Sapnap always had. He missed feeling like he had a home, one that wasn’t under the cruel, immortal stars. One that couldn’t see his mistakes highlighted in white starlight and blue skies.

His hands shook as he stood, tightening his mask. He needed to do this. Even if it scared him so much more than dying, so much more than monsters and wars. Quickly, he grabbed a stick from his pack, readjusting his sword in order to grab hold of it. Flicking the wood against a rough tree made it spark, burning bright and hot against the accusatory night.

Orchid clutched in one hand and torch in the other, he set off towards the town, where someone would be waiting. Someone.

And if they didn’t forgive him, he’d stay until they did. Until he’d earned that trust again. Until he’d earned that home.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> don’t you hate it when you murder your best friend and have to face the consequences of your actions? me too
> 
> i swear space au is updating tomorrow i had a bit of a rough week lol love u guys


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